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Here's one for the books

I got a call from a large business customer of mine that the Power 832 had completely shut down and nothing was working. So I immediately hit the road and was there in about 5 minutes time. By the time I got there, people were complaining about a foul, noxious odour coming from the small utility room where the panel was located. As I got to the door, I could see the smoke coming from under the door.

Anyway, upon entering, I could see this foul brown smoke was coming from the alarm can. When I opened it up, the main board immediately burst into flame from the oxygen that was now available, and that had not been available previously due to the intense smoke inside the can. I disconnected AC and battery, and was able to blow the fire out, but needless to say, the board was toast (literally), and the whole system had to be replaced. What had happened was the bridge rectifier on the board had shorted in some fashion and ignited.

But thinking about it afterwards, this panel could have burned the whole damn building down. Who says low voltage equipment poses no risks !!!!!

RHC

Reply to
R.H.Campbell
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Must be those dang Canadian fuses! :-)

I've never seen that happen. I did replace a 15 year old battery a = couple of months ago that looked like it coulda melted the house down. = It was almost round and completly dry inside...it rattled when shaken.

It's a good thing you went right away!

available=20

Reply to
Crash Gordon

How do you know? js

Reply to
alarman

You got that right ! The place was closed over the Easter weekend. I can only imagine what would have happened if it had caught fire during the three days the building was unoccupied. My smoke detectors in the building wouldn't have helped because they were connected to the non functional panel..

Someone up there was definately watching over me.....

RHC

I've never seen that happen. I did replace a 15 year old battery a couple of months ago that looked like it coulda melted the house down. It was almost round and completly dry inside...it rattled when shaken.

It's a good thing you went right away!

Reply to
R.H.Campbell
832 for commercial fire?

was there tin foil wrapped around the fuse?

I HATE panels that use fuses btw.

Reply to
Crash Gordon

Interesting. In my experience situations like this usually "rectify" themselves in that the traces on the board will blow off thus preventing any further current from "heating" things up... Case-in-point... an Edwards

6500... Water leak = nicely "toasted" cards...
Reply to
Frank Olson

I brought the toasted panel home and examined it. The rectifier literally melted and overheated the board for an inche in either direction. Plus the flames started there

RHC

Reply to
R.H.Campbell

How did you get a commercial fire application from my post. I don't do fire applications at all...

RHC

832 for commercial fire?

was there tin foil wrapped around the fuse?

I HATE panels that use fuses btw.

Reply to
R.H.Campbell

Yeah, definately something that other dealers hadn't heard of either. Just my luck I guess...

RHC

Reply to
R.H.Campbell

How about a washing machine hose breaking while homeowner was out of = town for weekend, the hose sprayed water directly into Radx 6112 for 3 = days. It was really funny when I went to service it...client said "it = got the panel box a *little* wet". Sheesh....the only thing left on that = wall WAS the box, all the dry wall was washed away. Panel just shut = itself down...I sent it to repair for "re-grooving" and worked fine = after that. The keypad was another story...it swims with the fishes.

preventing any=20

Reply to
Crash Gordon

"R.H.Campbell" wrote You got that right ! The place was closed over the Easter weekend. I can only imagine what would have happened if it had caught fire during the three days the building was unoccupied. My smoke detectors in the building wouldn't have helped because they were connected to the non functional panel..

Reply to
alarman

From this:

functional

Reply to
Crash Gordon

Yeah, I've had a couple of seriously flooded Paradox panels over the years. Pipes in the ceiling burst and drenched the panel on the wall close by in each case. The panels went ballistic until they shut down on their own. Once they dried out, I tested them thoroughly and they worked just fine (amazingly enough.....)

RHC

Reply to
R.H.Campbell

No, up here it is quite common to install smoke detectors along with most panels,commercial or residential. As I understand it, true fire applications are installed to quite different standards by companies trained and qualified to do so (Edwards up here comes to mind...). I know nothing about such services and don't want to; it's not in my market niche.

RHC

Reply to
R.H.Campbell

Not down here...if you put smokes in commercial it better be a full = commercial app - even if you cheat a little don't pull a permit and go = through all the rigamarole - it better be to code...or yer butt's up for = grabs if something happens.

commercial=20

disconnected AC

Reply to
Crash Gordon

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